Posts Tagged ‘weizenbock’

Weihenstephaner Vitus

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

I stopped in at the Radegast beer hall on 3rd Street in Brooklyn. Plenty of wood and dim lights decorate this bar that has at least a dozen choices on tap at any given time. They’ve got a fair bottle menu of mostly German lagers and Belgians to boot: the entire line of Lindeman’s impresses me, the Boon Gueuze impresses me more. Lively staff, mustard produced in-house, and (according to my buddy Trevor) tasty sausages.

I had a draft of Vitus, a bock beer made with wheat (weizenbock), produced by the oldest brewery in the world, Weihenstephan. The brewery (as well as the university of the same name) sit atop a mountain overlooking the town of Freising in Bavaria. I’m not sure the Radegast should be offering this beer in 1.5 liter mugs; just one full liter of a beer over 7.5% alcohol is probably plenty.

The Vitus pours a golden straw color and deeply hazy. The generous head is frothy and bone-white. A strong spiciness and shades of banana lead the aroma and are accompanied by cloves and an earthiness.

Rich bready malt flavor and some residual sweetness almost entirely hide the alcohol. All that is present is the spice and just a hint of heat. A light herbal hop character complements this and balances the malt. The faintest hint of bananas. Creamy carbonation gives a soft and rounded body.

Overall this beer is wonderful. Flavorful, but still dangerously sessionable. A quote from my tasting notes: “how does it hide the whatsit percent alcohol?”

++Weihenstephaner Vitus

4.4 (5-8-8-5-18)

Spotlight Week: New Glarus Brewing Company

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

2010-01-10-new-glarus-capFrom the tiny hamlet of New Glarus comes the beer that is the de facto king of Wisconsin microbrew, Spotted Cow. There are very few bars in the state that don’t have it on tap. But Daniel Carey, co-founder (with wife, Deb) and head brewer of New Glarus Brewing Company is no one-trick pony. They are continually producing Belgian Red and Raspberry Tart, two of the winningest fruit beers out there. Fat Squirrel and Stone Soup are stellar malty brews, and their Dancing Man Wheat is one of my favorite American wheat beers. They have ceased production on a few of my top picks, including Yokel (“Buy local, drink Yokel”), Uff-da (a rich bock), Hearty Hop (their IPA), and Copper Kettle Weiss (an incredible dunkelweizen, named after the copper kettles Dan brought over from Germany).

But Dan really comes into his own when brewing the Unplugged series. These (usually one-time) brews have included some divine sours, imperials, and barrel-aged selections. The Bourbon Barrel Bock has yet to be matched by a bourbon aged beer in my mind (I once said I would be happy just to smell it). Enigma was among the most unique beers I’ve had the opportunity to try, comparable only to Unibroue’s Quelque Chose. Dan is also one of the few brewers around here to attempt a Berliner weisse, a style that is all too easy to seriously butcher.

2010-01-10-edel-pilsNew Glarus beer is only available in Wisconsin. This is absurd considering their position among the largest craft brewers. People in Wisconsin drink a lot of good beer. Hey, leave some for the rest of us! After a brief attempt to expand distribution to Illinois a few years back, they built a new brewery up the hill with a much larger capacity. After a year of operation they still have yet to expand outside their home state, vexing craft beer lovers everywhere.

Tonight I have three examples of the work coming out of New Glarus this past year. First up I’ll try their Edel-Pils, brewed last summer. I know, I know, I should have consumed this fresh. Well, I’ve kept it dark and chill so hopefully it hasn’t lost too much. I’ll also have a pair of the Unplugged selections from 2009, the Imperial Saison and the dry-hopped Imperial Weizen.

The Edel-Pils pours a crystal clear golden straw. The bone white head is frothy and leaves significant lacing on the glass, though it could last longer. A rich noble hop aroma greets you from a distance. More deliberate investigation yields a delicate malt character and a hint of that Bavarian lager corn character (almost certainly from the yeast. I think Spotted Cow is the only beer they make with corn). The flavor is filled with malt, a clean and rich barley taste with just a bit of sweetness. Balancing bitterness and grassy noble hops round out the flavor. The body is full and creamy at first but gone in an instant. A well executed pilsner.

2010-01-10-imperial-saisonThe Imperial Saison is a beautiful opalescent coppery gamboge. The head is creamy, the appearance of clouds, and leaves not just lacing but a coating as it (slowly) falls. This nose is thick with fruit and spice. Apricot, orange, lemon, and apple dance with coriander and black pepper. Some alcohol pungency adds complexity yet refrains from being sharp. A bit of caramel and almond make for a truly intriguing aroma.

The first of the taste is a spicy alcohol warming on the tip of the tongue. This is accompanied by a hint of crisp acid and a dustiness to ensure you know it’s a saison. Some fruit comes out, but very different than on the nose. The apricot remains, joined by kiwi and banana. A bit of caramel and clean maltiness round out the flavor. The body is light and refreshing like lemonade. A bit of bitterness and some of the fruit lingers. This beer is quite complicated. I’m glad I have a second bottle to sit on for a while, to see how it ages.

2010-01-10-imperial-weizenFinally, the Imperial Weizen. The color is very close to the saison, a bit more towards copper. Chunks of yeast hang suspended in the beer. They are pushed up by the bubbles evolving in the middle and drift down towards the outside, almost giving the appearance of a lava lamp. The creamy off-white head leaves a great lacing but doesn’t last nearly long enough. The aroma is rich with spices: clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Sweet toffee and plenty of wheat come out, too. There is just a bit of higher alcohol that could be perceived as medicinal, but that is probably simply interaction with the spices.

The clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon are alive and well in the taste. Here they are joined by a citric hop flavor of grapefruit and orange. Caramel and toffee from the malt also contribute to the character. There is certainly an alcohol warming, and a lively effervescence that threatens sharpness without delivering. Complicated bordering on gridlock. By that I mean, though the flavor is certainly interesting and not at all unpleasant, I wonder if perhaps there is too much competition. To some extent the richness of tastes block each other out. Still quite a good beer.

++New Glarus Imperial Saison

4.2 (4-9-7-4-18)

+New Glarus Imperial Weizen

3.9 (3-8-7-5-16)

+New Glarus Edel-Pils

3.8 (3-8-7-4-16)

Great Lakes Glockenspiel

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Named after the Rathaus-Glockenspiel of Munich’s Neues Rathaus (“New Town Hall” – built in 1908), Glockenspiel is a weizenbock brewed by Great Lakes Brewing Company of Cleveland, Ohio. It is much the same style as Aventinus, made by Schneider, whose beer hall is just down the street from Marienplatz where the Glockenspiel is located. Every day the life-size automatons there reenact the wedding of Duke Wilhelm V (complete with a joust) as well as the Schäfflerstanz commemorating the end of the black plague.

Great Lakes GlockenspielThe beer form of Glockenspiel is a mahogany red, quite clear, with tan head. The nose, subtle at first, opens up to a big malty sweetness. Toast, caramel, and bread are accompanied by the strong cloves and hint of banana of a weissbier. Drink this from a glass with a globe, or at least a wine glass that curves in at the top to collect and amplify this fine aroma.

The flavor, fortunately, is not nearly as sweet as the aroma would make you think. The banana comes out first as the beer hits your tongue, followed by spicy cloves moving back. The toasty malt flavor rounds it out with just enough caramel to hide the alcohol. This is an 8% beer that drinks like a 6% one: the palate is thick enough to be a real bock without being cloying.

Quite satisfying. I’m sad my four-pack is gone.

+Great Lakes Glockenspiel

3.6 (3-7-7-4-15)

Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen Weisse

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

This next beer is the result of a collaboration between Hans-Peter Drexler of Weissbierbrauerei Schneider and Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery. It comes in two forms, one brewed at each of the breweries, and the two have slightly different hopping regimes. Both are called Hopfen Weisse (“Hop Wheat Beer”); when made in Kelheim the full name is Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen Weisse.Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen Weisse This one is dry hopped with saphir (have I been in a rut recently?). In case you are curious, when made in Brooklyn it is called Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen Weisse and it’s dry hopped with amarillo and palisade.

The Hopfen Weisse is a very cloudy tangerine yellow. It has a bit of off-white head. The aroma is much like you would expect from a hefeweizen: strong clove and banana and some bready, wheaty, and toasty malt notes. In this one, however, there is a distinct citric hop aroma. The nose is delicate but remarkably complex. The already carefully balanced hefe character has found a hoppy companion.

The flavor delivers on what the nose promises. Likewise light and delicate, it is a dance of wheat breadiness, yeast clovitude, and hop citricity (that’s right). There is just a hint of alcohol warming, not enough to tell you that it’s over 8 percent by volume. A bit of sweetness keeps the alcohol at bay to let the cloves and exotic fruit flavors shine. That sweetness refrains from hanging around long enough to be cloying, maintaining the delicacy of this beer.

As my friend Jan says about this one, “Nom, nom, nom!”

++Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen Weisse

4.3 (3-8-9-5-18)

P.S. In case you were wondering, that is my saphir single hop homebrew in the backgroud waiting to get racked.